S A M H S A Opioid Overdose TOOLKIT: Facts for Community Members

Opiate overdose continues to be a major public health problem in the United States. It has contributed significantly to accidental
deaths among those who use, misuse or abuse illicit and prescription opioid analgesics. In fact, overdose deaths involving
prescription opioid analgesics have increased to almost 17,000 deaths a year [1,2]. As a result, drug poisoning deaths in the U.S. almost doubled between 2001 and 2010 [1]. This increase coincided with a nearly fourfold increase in the use of prescribed opioids for the treatment of pain [3].